Month: July 2011

I don’t know a lot about Southeast Asian American children’s literature so this was fun list to research and it was fun to hunt down books I had heard about but haven’t read in a while as well as discover a few really great authors that are new to me. I asked a Mom Friend at a birthday party — we were both waiting in the car for 2+ hours while our kids jumped on gigantic trampolines — since she’s East Asian what East Asian KidLit was in her bookshelves. She said there wasn’t a lot available and it’s true.

Encylopedia Mythologica covers Ancient Egyptian gods as well as the more famous Greek and Roman gods. The book also covers Norse, Middle Eastern and Native American gods. Like the other books in the series, the pop ups are magnificent and there are pop up pages-within-pages chock full of interesting stories and factoids.
What I love about this book series (and I think I own them all) is that it entertains at many levels — younger kids will love the pop ups and may only want to read selectively, and older kids can absorb a lot of information by exploring all the smaller pop up pages. This is a great non fiction book for reluctant readers and Middle School kids since 6th grade typically covers Greek Mythology.

I’m been asking for and getting a small pile of books these days and haven’t been posting on them. I was at a loss about how to present them … individual book reviews? But there are lots of bloggers who do that. Sometime in the middle of the night, I got the [random] idea of a short stack of books. Like, it could be any amount from 3 to 10, like a stack of pancakes. I decided to rank the books in the order that we liked them. Let me know what you think.

My 5th grade daughter’s book club got invited to the 5th grade boys’ book club because they had a special guest, William Maliul, an articulate and engaging Lost Boy of Sudan, who came to speak about his experiences in Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the United States. Brothers in Hope was the book club selection and though it is a picture book, the content is suitable for a 4th or 5th grader.

The Geisel Award is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year. It was founded in 2004 and the first award year was 2006, so it’s a fairly new award. That’s great because it’s a list that is actually plausible to work through! What Easy Readers have you and your kids enjoyed? Let’s add it to the list!

The Green Earth Lit award is sponsored by the Newton Marasco Foundation for books that either promote an inspired understanding of the environment, an awareness of environmental issues, or a celebration of nature; encourage the concept of environmental stewardship and the role each of us can play in nurturing, protecting, and defending our environment; and with environmental issues that are current and accurately portrayed. What are your favorite Green Earth books? Please share!